Steven Waugh with a video camera he is setting up near a feeder. Through a smart phone app, its possible to continually monitor the area real time. Technology is of great benefit to those that enjoy the outdoors. Photo Credit: Luke Clayton / Daily Light contributor
I’m one of those “old school” guys that was dragged into the technological age kicking and screaming. It all began back in the early eighties. I worked as a surveyor for a quarter century and learned from experienced guys that used formulas; pencil and paper to accomplish their survey tasks. Then an engineer I worked for informed me we were acquiring an instrument that would store data collected in the field which could be downloaded into a computer at the office, no more field drawings and notes like I had learned so well to do. My crew and I buckled down and adapted to the technology and soon really liked the new way of accomplishing our work, no more cutting brush to clear a “transit line.” We now turned angles and let the machines calculate the distances and angles!
I was a budding outdoors writer I those days and the sports editor of a large newspaper I freelanced a fishing for furnished me an early day laptop computer and showed me how to hook the thing up to my land line telephone so I could transmit my articles. I can still hear the beeping and buzzing of that old school modem. It took several minutes to transmit the fifteen hundred or so words but I quickly became dependent on the new system. I could now send my articles in from anywhere there was phone service! A bit later came a home PC that I consider somewhat magic. I could actually send photos in to my editors taken with a digital camera. Long gone were the days when I rushed my film into a drug store for developing and then mailed in the prints! From my survey days, I was a pretty good “note keeper” and I would write down word for word instructions on these new innovations, things most young people of today take for granted, I had to learn as a step by step formula, ie.. punch this button and the machine gives this results! Without the instructions, I was lost!
And then along came civilian GPS (global positioning). The first GPS units were pretty primitive compared to what’s available today. The government “scrambled” the coordinates but early GPS would get you close enough to find your way out of the woods, assuming you could get a clear view of the sky or when fishing, help you find that submerged brush pile of hump you hoped would be holding fish. I found myself combining my surveying knowledge to GPS and having all sorts of fun on my hunting and fishing trips. The GPS available then was nowhere close to the accuracy of today but again, it would get you pretty close and with a few calculations, I learned to do rough acreage and distance calculations between sets of coordinates. GPS units are now available with map features that allow pin point navigation on most lakes in the US. With these units first time boaters have a detailed map that marks their exact location and points them to fishing hotspots, boat lanes, etc. Maps of land features are also available and as long as the GPS unit is working, finding one’s way back to camp is as easy as glancing at the route on the screen. I still carry a compass when in woods though and never have depended totally on GPS and the batteries that power the units!
The paper graphs for fishing seemed almost like cheating back in the day. These units actually drew a picture of what was below the boat on reels of paper with the use of a “stylus” that flashed back and forth on the paper. Today these units are something modern day anglers would see in a museum of ancient fishing gear! Today’s fishermen can turn on a unit called a Livescope and actually see the fish below the boat in real time and drop their bait right in front of the fish’s mouth! I’ve fished with several guides that use this state or the art sonar but I’ll be honest I still like marking structure with fish on a “regular” graph and fishing old school. I find staring at the Livescope to be somewhat frustrating, especially on a sunny day when squinting to see the fish down there and know the bait is right in front of them but they will not bite! The technology is great to find fish and see what’s happening real time under the boat; it’s the constant starring at the screen that I don’t like. This doesn’t seem to bother younger fishermen I’m with, guess it’s another indicator of my “old school” habits.
About fifteen years ago, I was a guest on an outdoor show of a good friend in southeast Texas. He asked why I didn’t start my own hunting and fishing show here in north Texas. At his prompting, I began and got my first radio station to air the show, KPYK in Terrell. Then I branched out and slowly picked up other stations. I remember driving 50 miles from home to a little studio to record the shows. Thanks to Dan Foster, a veteran “radio guy,” I learned how to conduct interviews and keep the talk going when my guests ran out of things to say. Today, recording is as easy as flipping a few switches and through an inline phone patch, recording the shows right here at home. I then email them to the producer that makes them radio ready.
A now work with a Larry Weishuhn and Jeff Rice to produce our TV show A Sportsman’s Life. I often film a little cooking segment out by my little cabin here at home, download it and email the video within minutes after filming to the producer. The next week I watch the segment along with the rest of the show on our big screen TV via ROKU.
Better wrap up our little visit this week, about time for me to check the app on my smart phone and check that live feed video camera in the woods 70 miles from home and see if the hogs are coming in!
Make plans to visit us at the late winter Rendezvous at the Top Rail Cowboy Church in Greenville on March 4. For more info or to reserve booth space contact Pastor Charlie Nasser at the church or me via email lukeclayton1950@gmail.com .
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